Nothing can defeat a determined people

Of a truth, my joy has known no bounds since hearing and reading of the news of a total fine of GH¢15.6 million imposed on 29 “galamseyers” arrested by the task force made up of military, police and personnel of the Forestry Services Division, now known as Operation Vanguard. I have been so excited that I thought I needed to write this piece to commend the government and the people of Ghana for the various roles they have all played in bringing us to where we are today.

As a young boy in Primary Six in a farming community in the Ashanti Region, we were taught to recite sentences formed with all the letters in the English alphabet from A to Z and the sentence for the letter W was, “Where there is a will there is way.”

I do not think there is anything that a determined person or group of persons cannot do. We can see this in the Bible when the people decided to build the Tower of Babel. They were so determined that nothing was going to stop them from achieving their aim until God realised that what they were doing was not meant to give Him glory but to make a name for themselves and, therefore, confounded their language.

Before the invention of airplanes by Wilbur and Orville Wright in 1903, I doubt anybody ever imagined that a scientific feat of that magnitude was possible. Today we even have supersonic aircrafts, able to fly faster than the speed of sound which are used almost entirely for research and military purposes.

In my article on galamsey, published in the Daily Graphic on Monday, March 20, 2017, I wrote the following:

“I hear that one thing which is making it difficult for the country to fight the galamsey menace is the fact that the illegal miners are fully armed. But is this not paradoxical given the fact that Ghana is acclaimed worldwide for its peace-keeping exploits? Is there any group of people in this country who have superior fire power than our security forces? If we could send troops to protect the peace of other countries, why can’t we deploy such men and women of valour to protect our lives which is our water bodies?

I am indeed very excited to hear that military personnel are now permanently stationed at the Weija Treatment Plant to ward off encroachers and polluters.

Patrol

My earnest appeal and prescription for this seaming albatross, therefore, Mr President, is to permanently deploy our “better armed” security personnel to patrol all our water bodies in the country, day and night, no matter the financial cost, to deal ruthlessly with all local and foreign illegal miners who choose to ply their trade in our water bodies. I do not yet know of any country on the globe where foreigners could boldly enter with earth-moving equipment to destroy their water bodies with impunity while the citizens and their government look on helplessly, saying the people are armed.

I am grateful to the President that, to a large extent, he listened to my appeal and has detailed the security forces to enforce the ban on galamsey. Thanks President Akufo-Addo, for walking your talk. To the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Mr Peter Amewu, I say congratulations on doing a good job. The hearts and prayers of the majority of Ghanaians are with you. Please, be encouraged to pursue the agenda to bequeath rejuvenated water bodies and regenerated vegetative cover to posterity who will surely remember you as a great man.

Commendation

How can I send commendations in this regard and forget the mastermind behind the Media Coalition Against Galamsey, the Managing Director of Graphic Communications Group, Mr Kenneth Ashigbey, for whom I have a lot of respect; the host of the Citi Breakfast Show, Mr Bernard Avle, and his team at Citi FM also deserve tonnes of commendations for their advocacy work which culminated in the sharing of branded T’shirts in traffic. And what more shall I say? I can’t fail to mention the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, New Times Corporation, Christian Council of Ghana, Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association, Ghana Journalists Association and the Private Newspaper Publishers Association for throwing their weight behind the initiative to clamp down on illegal mining and save the unborn generation.
My work will be incomplete if I leave out our venerable former Chief Justice, Her Ladyship Georgina Theodora Wood, who quickly set up specialised courts for this noble cause. It is her initiative that has resulted in such punitive fines of as much as GH¢ 600,000 each or in default five years jail term each of the 26 nationals of Niger, Burkina Faso, Guinea Conakry, Mali and Togo who were arrested and charged with conspiracy to mine without licence, mining without licence and trespassing of forest reserves. The three Ghanaians involved were also fined GH¢30,000 each or in default serve three years jail term each.

I am glad to say that apart from the court sanctions being punitive enough to serve as a deterrent to others, other benefits of the Operation Vanguard are that the quality of raw water abstracted by the Ghana Water Company Limited has improved quite significantly to the extent that the turbidity of the Pra River has now reduced from 3,000 NTU to below 1,000 NTU while alum dosage at Daboase has also reduced from 130mg/l to about 100mg/l.

These are all the results of determination to succeed.

Email: oheneba.twum69@yahoo.com